Priyantha Udagedara’s exhibition titled Herbal Garden is not about something as innocuous as the homely beauty of sage and thyme growing in a garden. His work deals subtly with the ‘real activity’ that goes on behind herbal massage centers in Sri Lanka. Anoma Rajakaruna comments that he “expresses the subject of the exploitation of the female body in an industry projected locally as both exotic and of a healing nature.”
Udagedara’s last exhibition at Saskia Fernando, Paradise Lost, presented a series of aesthetically pleasing imagery that when observed from a closer view proved to be disturbing and traumatic.